RG: I eat balut (by the bowlful). As a child my favourite street treat was green mango and bagoong. (It still is). I eat the dish Diningding (dinengdeng) almost every day in the Philippines. I mention this to Filipinos and they don’t know what it is! Does that answer your question? Funny how my answer is ALL about food. Go figure! Haha.

VN: What
do you love most about the Philippines?

RG: The Food. The flavours are
super exotic - tastes found nowhere else on earth! Miles of deserted beaches.
The “anything goes” attitude. The way we celebrate – particularly religious
festivals. Every trip is a pilgrimage for me. My faith, beliefs in God and
universe are continually strengthened and made clearer with every journey I
take home. I admire and learn much from Christian faith I see and experience in
the Philippines. Elsewhere, I notice church attendance dwindling. It’s far from
that in the Philippines.

VN: What do you hate most
about it?

RG: Eating once a day.
In otherwords… it’s continuous! It’s a love hate relationship with food. Why oh
why we love to eat!?

VN: How was it being the
daughter of the 12th Baron de Longueuil?

RG: Nothing to it much. Other
than the origin is quite fascinating historically, it’s a good bit of trivia
for interviews like this. 300 years ago I would have had quite an entourage I
suppose. Technically I have the title Honorable Rachel Grant de Longueuil.

VN: Or was there a time
when you were considered the “other daughter” being the sister of Angela (a
model who recently qualified with the Royal Academy of Dance and opened the
Angela Grant School of Dance ) and Rebecca (an actress known for her role as
Sister Anderson in Holby City)?

RG: I was simply and always
the middle sister. I didn’t have the privileges of the eldest or the attention
of the youngest. I had it just right! I am very glad to have been a middle
sibling.

RG: I live in the USA – away
from all my family! We are continually in touch via email and skype. It allows
us to be very close and helps us to achieve much. In 2007, to help reunite the
ever growing and spreading family, we founded a charity called the Padua
Charitable Fund. The Paduas are my Mum’s family spread over three continents.
We raise money for poor communities in the Philippines. It’s been a super way
to bring the family together and to each have the same goal.

VN: What attracted you to
martial arts?

RG: My interest in martial
arts movies led me to dabble in several forms of martial arts. However, when I
moved to Hollywood, I did not expect to be introduced to the extraordinary
culture of Filipino Martial Arts (FMA). It was my first experience with this
unique fighting style. I was attracted to it immediately - not because it is
Filipino and my heritage, because it is damn good! Since then, I haven’t looked
back at the many other martial art disciplines I once tried.

Initially, I was attracted
to the immediate use of weaponry and techniques of FMA. Unlike other martial
arts that start with “empty hands” later adding the use of weapons, FMA starts
with weapons and later moves on to empty hand techniques. This aspect and
concept of FMA training is that movements muscles memorize and learn with basic
sticks, applies to all weaponry as well as the empty hand. It is said that
learning this way is faster and more polished - out of experience I agree.
Above all, it is much more fun!

VN: How would you describe
your experience from learning Kali from likes of Dan Inosanto?

RG: I first studied FMA at the
world renowned Inosanto Academy in Los Angeles under academy owner Filipino
American Guro Dan. Attending the school was an extraordinary experience and I
learned much. Guro Dan is arguably the world’s leading escrima icon alive today
and western founding father to this ever evolving Filipino culture. He has
spawned dozens of Hollywood stuntmen and choreographers and was Bruce Lee’s top
student and longtime friend. Guro Dan is awesome! He appeared as the Filipino
fighter opposite Bruce Lee wearing his iconic yellow jumpsuit in the
well-known, critically acclaimed film Game of Death. Bruce Lee left Guro Dan
with the responsibility of continuing his system called Jeet Kune Do and was
the only person given instructorship in his Jeet Kune Do of the third level.
Guro Dan has continued with Bruce Lee’s innovative teaching and incorporation
of FMA. He is probably the most revered living instructor today but remains a
humble man and an eternal student to the art. I am very lucky to have learned
from him. Filipino Martial Arts is the Philippine's greatest cultural export.

….along with Manny
Pacquiao, of course!

VN: What is your most
unforgettable adventure?

RG: I have many. A journey to
the Galapagos Islands last year was certainly unforgettable. It was like
visiting another planet. The bizarre, yet beautiful archipelago was the
inspiration behind Darwin’s theory of evolution. It is host to a freak show of
animal species, of which 43% are endemic to these 35 isolated volcanic islands.
One adventurous dive in the Galapagos was enough to last a diver’s lifetime - a
forest of garden eels, a wall of a hammerhead sharks, giant sea turtles, three
spotted eagle rays and a “shiver” of sleeping white-tipped sharks amidst
schools of snappers, barracudas, reef fish, trumpet fish, blowfish and
thousands of colorful creatures! Amazing place. The Galapagos and the
Philippines are by far the best waters I have dived in.

About Me

VICTOR EMMANUEL CARMELO D. NADERA JR.
A Manila Bulletin columnist, Victor Emmanuel Carmelo Nadera Jr. was the youngest director of Likhaan: U.P. Institute of Creative Writing that won the Francisco Balagtas Award (2006) from the National Language Commission. Some of his projects include the text-a-poem contests such as Textanaga (2003), Dalitext (2003), Dionatext (2004), and Textsawikain (2005).He also initiated the first student literary conference called Panitikabataan. Every Tuesday he host the Conspiwriters’ Tuesdays for three years at the Conspiracy Garden Café and O.M.G.: Open Mic Gig every last Monday at Mag:net Gallery (Katipunan). The portal to Philippine literature panitikan.com.ph was his brainchild too like Pistang Panitik or Literary Fiesta which coincides with the annual Manila International Book Fair since 2006. Elected Chairman of the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL) during its Congress on 25 August 2007, Vim is also the incumbent president of Kapisanan ng May K sa Pilipinas, an umbrella organization of cancer support groups.